With the launch of Mavericks imminent, a handful of major websites have begun supporting the Safari Push Notification feature. These sites include The New York Times, NBA.com and social network Pinterest. HTML 5 web notifications have been supported by all major browsers, including Safari, for a while. However, the HTML 5 native feature requires the page to be open for notifications to be sent, as noted by MacRumors.

Meanwhile, Safari Push Notifications mirror the user experience associated with native app push notifications. With user consent, a supporting website can send notifications to your Mac without the page (or even, Safari) being open. This is because this system uses Apple’s Push Notification Service servers — rather than the local client — to function. Because of this server-side integration, the utility of website notifications increases dramatically.